rcnfandomcom-20200214-history
Chronology
Timeline for events in the RCN series and its universe. Chronometry For most purposes, the colonies used terrestrial units of time. To emphasize that, the years are sometimes explicitly called Terran/terrestrial years, Earth years, or standard years. Hours, minutes and seconds are frequently used. Deep History * 60,000 BCE: A platinum pyramid was left to be embedded by limestone by unknown travelers on Dansant. * 28,000 BCE: A glacier on ME8*9JB started dragging a spherical craft, composed of pentagonal plates. Recorded History Most events are dated relatively, from statements such as "fifteen hundred years ago". The events with absolute dates are displayed in bold. * Interstellar colonization starts from Earth * :almost three thousand could easily be 2900 or even 2800, so this date is probably a century or two too early. The Institutions, the basis of the Service of the Tree on New Delphi, was written by Senior Scientist Arlan Melzoff. * : The Adventures of Captain Devereaux was printed on Arslan in the tenth year of the third indiction of President Bella Gruen. * : New Delphi was settled and named three hundred years before the Hiatus. * Terran sector headquarters are built on various colonies, including on Karst well before 3149 CE * : The Rambles of a Misspent Life was published in Xenos in the year 878 Old Style * : The first tier colonies revolted against the home world. The war was fought with asteroids accelerated to slam into planets, killing all but a few percent of those living on those worlds. * : The start of Hiatus.a millennium before mankind returned to the stars, and the return came from second- and third-tier colonies, worlds like Cinnabar and Pleasaunce which had been too minor for either side to bother destroying * 3247 CE: (2706 Anno Hejira) The traditionalAdele Mundy did not find this credible. date of Captain Wang's Colony on Kostroma * : A starship crash survivor spent 9 years with the natives of South Land of Sexburga, leaving a diary in Universal (language) that Adele Mundy would read 1500 years later. * 3902 CE: (3381 Anno Hejira) Second Landing on Kostroma: colonization from Topaz, under the Princess Cecile Alpen-Morshach. * : Republic of Cinnabar emerged as a power. * : 500 years after the Hiatus, Palmyra is taken over by Pleasaunce in the First Expansion * : Captain St. Regis opened Maranham. * : Approximate date of the first reference to Captain WangThis is the key point to anchoring Adele's viewpoint to an absolute date: no record of the story for sixteen hundred years plus a post-Hiatus history of the Swartzenhild clan ... three hundred years back making the traditional date of first colony on Kostroma 1900 years in the past. * : On-and-off warfare between the Alliance of Free Stars and Republic of Cinnabar begins * : SantanderCould Rene Cazelet mean against Pleasaunce ? revolted against Alliance * : Alliance is formed * : First Alliance War ended Recent History Events since Adele Mundy's birth, that is within the lifetime of the main characters. These events are likely to be accurate, and are usually tied to ages of the protagonists at the time. * : Adele Mundy is born * : Agatha Mundy is born * : Daniel Leary is born * : Adele arrives on Bryce * : The Three Circles Conspiracy is crushed; most Mundys are killed * : the Fourth Alliance War starts when Alliance annexes Pantellaria * : Paul Alan Rooksby deserted from the RCN on 03/02/95. * : Daniel's mother dies; his subsequent row with his father leads to Daniel joining the Navy * Active war begins between Cinnabar and Alliance * : the Selma Cluster became a client state of the Republic of Cinnabar. Joint History * : Adele Mundy (31 years old) and Lieutenant Daniel Leary (22) meet on Kostroma * : Daniel, still 22, and Adele embark on a mission to Strymon. ** RCN orders Daniel Leary and the [[RCS Princess Cecile|RCS Princess Cecile]] to Strymon system on 16 xi 45. * : Adele is 32. The Princess Cecile is hired by Count Georgi Klimov and his wife. Daniel's uncle Stacey Bergen dies. * : Daniel is 24. * : Commander Leary and Warrant Officer Mundy embark for Dunbar's World. * : the Siege of Diamondia. * : Leary (26), promoted to Captain as a consequence of the Battle of the Jewel System, is sent to Karst. * : Daniel has been in the Navy for 10 years. He and Adele are sent to Zenobia. ** Georg Brassey installed a portable landing beacon on 12-09-45 * : Adele (now 36) arrived on Sunbright; Daniel was there already. Methods and Issues Sources of Dating Most year references in the RCN series are relative, with a few exceptions: * David Drake mentioned units in use three millenia hence, making the period approximately 5000 Common Era * Two dates in Kostroma history (first and second landing) using "Anno Hajira" or Muslim calendar * Two dates related to the desertion of Rooksby * Navy House order to Leary * Brassey's ordering and installation of a landing beacon The first landing occurred approximately 1900 years before the events in , other events are then calculated from that date, assuming higher precision than is really supported by the text. The other absolute dates are not used at this point. Comments from David Drake Note the timeline may not be fully consistent. When discussing calendar and timelnie, the author stated:David Drake, 2012-08-19, "Drake's RCN Series: Calendar", Baen's Bar, retrieved 2012-08-20. Dear Sir or Madame, When John Treadaway began working on the Hammer series' details for the miniature game, it became a little embarrassing to me. I don't think in those terms. I have an extremely good memory for incident and conversation (as I've proved a number of times) but I have no serial memory worth mentioning. Assigning a date to something in my own life is often a matter of remembering what I was driving at the time. What's true in my life is also true in my fiction. In this I'm aided by the fact that classical civilizations tended to think in terms of an eternal present also. A rich man's library might have busts of Solon, Socrates, and Marcus Aurelius with no real awareness of the fact that the periods in which the three men lived were utterly different. I won't be able to help you. Perhaps others (with minds more like those of John Treadaway) will. Best wishes, Dave Drake He also added:David Drake, 2012-08-20, "Drake's RCN Series: Calendar", Baen's Bar, retrieved 2012-08-20. Yes, please run my comments anywhere they would be appropriate. Unless I say something is not for publication, it's all free to quote. I may be a fool, but you'll find I'm a straightforward one. And do have fun, but don't expect me to have been writing consistent history. I prefer memoirs to secondary history anyway. Questions and Continuity Problems * Starship crash on Sexburga, and even the secondary colonizations from Topaz seem to occur during the Hiatus. ** One possibility is that the Hiatus started (and ended) earlier, perhaps 2600-3600. But then Cinnabar didn't become a real power for about 500 years after the end of Hiatus, perhaps analogous to early Roman history. * Captain Devereaux apparently visited New Delphi before it was settled (or actually, a book about his adventures was printed before) * First Alliance War ended only a year after Alliance's formation. On the other hand, it seems that Pleasaunce was an aggressive power long before that. * And another reference in to the Alliance existing at least 100 years back. * Brassey installed a landing beacon in '45, presumably a few months before Leary's arrival. This seems to conflict with the "current" date based on Rooksby's desertion (which is about '110. ** Possible interpretation: the Brassey used Zenobia dates. ** Note: the orders to Strymon issued to Leary are dated in '45; making the "45" date Cinnabar (and presumably Terran) standard. But the relative time span to the landing beacon on Zenobia just doesn't work. References Category:History